Today on a whim I trekked down to the Convention Center in Washington D.C. for 2008’s Green Festival. I came down primarily to hear 3 of the most amazing progressive women I know of: Amy Goodman, Barbara Ehrenreich and Katrina vanden Heuvel, but I discovered so much more. The entire vibe of the festival is tinged with excitement about the progressive victories last week, with the election of Obama and other progressives on the national stage. Thousands of Washingtonians and visitors to our wonderful city are converging as I write this on this center to learn about sustainable living, sustainable politics and the push for a sustainable progressive community. Below is my reaction to hearing Amy Goodman speak, as well as transcribed excerpts from Barbara Ehrenreich and Katrina vanden Heuval:
Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman has the perfect answer when asked who she represents: "Democracy Now." As host of the only national radio/TV news show free of all corporate underwriting, she is able to present a range of independent voices not often heard on the airwaves. "Dissent," she explains, "is what makes this country healthy."
My heart skipped a beat when I saw Amy Goodman for the first time in person today. That’s right, I am an Amy Goodman groupie. She is one of the first voices I wake up to and one of the most informed voices I listen to on any given day. Her show, "Democracy Now!", is simply put the best daily news source I consume. She is a veteran of the progressive media infrastructure that the netroots is also proud to be a part of. In her wonderful speech, Amy blended her hope and excitement at the coming Obama presidency with a very stark reminder that "hope" and "change" is up to the grassroots movements in America. Her most memorable line of the day is when she made the point that the only positions more powerful than the occupant of the Oval Office are the collective positions of community organizers, activists and grassroots movement builders. I consider it an honor to have heard her speak live. She is currently on a book tour, check out if she's coming to your area to talk about her and her brother's new book, "Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times".
Barbara Ehrenreich
Best let Barbara, author of the book Nickel & Dimed, introduce herself. She is quite a powerhouse:
People sometimes ask how one can be an objective journalist as well as an activist, but most of the writing I have done has been of the opinionated variety anyway. Besides, I can’t imagine getting involved in a problem as a journalist and not wanting to do something about it, whether that means marching, picketing, leafleting, or helping build an organization for social change. Besides, a lot of my inspiration as a journalist comes from what I experience as an activist -- the people I meet on union picket lines, for example...
I loved Barbara’s comparison in her speech of going to college now quite similar to playing the lottery, which made my laugh but also cry a little inside. Her kernel of truth was that just as we have college attendance at soaring levels, we are seeing tuitions reach astronomical levels and post-undergrad job offers disappear with the economy. Barbara mentioned how there are more college graduates than there are jobs now. This is honestly the reason why I chose to be a business major. Despite my intense interest in politics, social justice and the progressive movement, I’m scared about prospects for employment and the concern about having an employer that offers benefits and healthcare. Some choice tidbits from Barbara (warning, she's very colorful with language to put it diplomatically]:
"You’d think the economy was a giant clitoris. With all this talk of stimulus... "[we don’t just need another stimulus] We need a GREEN stimulus."
"We have stuff that needs to be done and people who need jobs, put the two together!"
"I know there’s something wrong when again and again the economy... is treated is a kind of deity that cannot be questioned... What is this fetish that we worship? If the economy isn’t serving people, CHANGE THE ECONOMY!"
"The huge inequality in wealth and income in the United States... the richest 1% of Americans have more wealth than the bottom 90% of Americans...There’s a big green component to this maldistribution of wealth.... Who has the highest carbon footprint on Earth? The super-rich with their 50,000 square feet homes and Lear Jets... I heard of this billionaire who has a separate jet for his pets...We have to tax the rich... there was a point not that long ago when rich Americans paid 90% of their income in taxes... it was a time of prosperity."
"Stop the 700 million dollar bailout. This is the golden parachute for the rich... This is last minute looting [by the Bush administration]... I’d like to challenge the idea that the economy has to grow all the time... the only thing that grows and grows and grows is an untreated tumor... [it is] the cult of growth... the idea that growth is good no matter what you’re growing, no matter what you’re producing... [this thought is responsible partially for] global warming... working people have been told for a long time that if you want more money... just wait till we have more growth, then the pie will get bigger... the point is not to grow the pie, but to get out the old pie cutter again and redivide that pie in a different way."
"Let’s change the way of defining our measure of growth... As a feminist [the GDP] has historically left out the work the women do in the home... suppose we devise a new method of success... how about the number of people with access to healthcare? Here’s a grand idea, how about measure it by the amount of leisure time we have? Let’s grow things like that and reconnect the economy to reality."
"We need a vision that is not only sustainable, that is not only socially just, but is also appealing... We can’t have ‘more, more more’ bigger houses, more cars, more stuff... but that doesn’t mean that the answer is less... too often the green side of our vision sounds like giving stuff up... I call this ‘eco-puritanism’... what we have to emphasize I think is that less stuff does not mean less happiness or less pleasure. I’m asking for a little hedonism please. What we forget very often in our culture is that humans, biologically, derive their greatest joy, not by things, but by each other. One thing is sex! [We need to protect] non-reproductive sex... what is the matter with non-reproductive sex!?."
"Reproduction is not the single highest priority of our species anymore... as a species we’ve done REAL WELL with that, give ourselves a pat on the back!... we will consider to have and cherish our children, but we should celebrate the fact that we have sex for the sheer pleasure of it... humans can generate pleasure without using up the earth’s resources... the excitement, the joy, of feeling connected to other people, in some cause that is larger than ourselves."
"We live in a kind of culture, which isolated us as individuals in our cubicles, as families in our houses... it is hard to understand how much joy, pleasure and happiness we have to reclaim and create if we take another path. If we want a new world, and we do, one that is both socially just and sustainable, we’re gonna need a new culture too and one that includes a lot more dancing in the streets!"
Katrina vanden Heuval
Katrina vanden Heuvel has been The Nation's editor since 1995 and publisher since 2005...
She is a frequent commentator on American and international politics on MSNBC, CNN and PBS. Her articles have appeared in The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and The Boston Globe.
I am a subscriber of The Nation magazine and an avid supporter of this magazine, which is one of the oldest members of the progressive media infrastructure, having been founded in 1865. Some snips from Katrina vanden Heuval’s speech:
"Let’s celebrate! This is one of those moments in history... there are very few moments in history when you have a sense of why people go into the streets to celebrate."
"This new moment, this era of possibility has opened up by Barack Obama’s victory... there’s work ahead to build the politics of justice, of sanity, of peace... we’ve had a brick wall these past 8 years in the White House... You’ve got to stop and take a moment to realize that this election has marked a milestone in our nation’s scarred racial landscape."
"This election did mark a repudiation of who's a real American, who's not a real American. There’s a victory for tolerance and decency... win or lose, Obama’s already made us a better country... for too long in this country, movement and electoral politics have been divided... for the first time in decades, this election cycle has brought hope instead of despair... Obama achieved this victory through mass community organizing... and the respect for community organizing drew multiracial community organizing on the ground and online... I remember Obama’s organizing mantra ‘Respect, Empower, Include’... those are words that are very moving."
"we need to keep making history, and that means staying engaged... if we are mobilized we can challenge that establishment consensus..."
"Already we hear calls that the new Democratic majority must not overreach... that is code for do not use your mandate, IGNORE THOSE CALLS. This past election was a referendum on political philosophies... a philosophy of progressive decency won... historians may see this election as the end of the era of Reagan and the beginning of something new... the shifts in public views that have been changed by movement activism have led to this watershed moment. To those that argue that Obama must govern from the center... I think the election has shown that there is a new center... people seek solutions to the problems that are at the center of their lives, expand health care... living wages, good jobs and an active government that acts on behalf of people and not corporate forces."
"'Without vision', says the Bible, 'the people perish'... people are ready, that’s part of what this election will be about... for the first time in a decade there will be sympathetic allies on the inside... working of course with allies, activists, thinkers, scholars and members of Congress, we need to reset the mindset... we need to find allies, not just in progressives, to begin to dismantle this empire... you cannot be a Republic and an Empire at the same time... it’s time to build those coalition and unshackle our imaginations and to think in bolder ways and understand that there is a space for that."
"I think the big challenge of this election is where this energy of young people will go... where will it go now?... I think that there will be a great push for national service, and I think that we need to give and edge to that and sharpen what that means..."
"If we can retrieve those parts of our history which has a radicalism in it and built it into the future, then there are lots of people who will see our ideas with less fear... popular social movements working outside FDR’s administration forced Roosevelt to carry out more [New Deal] reforms... I believe the hard times may push Obama to become a bolder President."
Amen. What a day.